Supporting the netfilter/iptables project

Isn't it great that you can have a fully-fledged feature-rich packet filter,
and all for free?

The netfilter/iptables project is a volunteer-based community effort. We can
only exist because of the contributions of our users. If nobody would write
any code, answer questions on the mailinglists, write documentation, ... the
project wouldn't exist.

So basically, it's your choice where you want to see the project tomorrow. If
you are interested in the further progress of this project: Please contribute.

Helping other users on the mailinglists

By answering questions asked by fellow users on the mailinglists, you can enable the
netfilter/iptables developers to spend more time with development, rather than
answering to questions. This, in turn, will make new features available
faster.

Development

The most obvious way to help us, is development. If you are no developer,
skip this section. There are many other options on how you could help us

If you write any extension for netfilter/iptables, please make it available
under the GNU GPLv2 and contribute it by sending a patch.

If you are a developer, but don't have any idea in which area of the project
you could work on: Please contact the coreteam, and we will will give you
suggestions on a specific task you could do.

Please note that within netfilter/iptables (as part of the kernel), we strictly
adhere the Kernel CodingStyle. Please also consider reading SubmittingPatches
as a good starter in how to prepare patches in a way to make it easy for the
maintainers of free software projects.

Donating

We are always happy about donations in any form.

If you are a corporate user or vendor, we would gladly accept any donations,
either monetary or in goods (hardware, ..). We assure you that any donation we
receive is very much appreciated and used for further development of the netfilter/iptables software.

To see which companies and individuals supported us with donations in the past,
please see the Thanks section.

Writing free documentation

As you will have noticed, the documentation is sometimes outdated and
incomplete. If you notice some missing, outdated or incomplete item of
documentation, please send us a patch against the original SGML/XML source of
that document.

If you write any kind of netfilter/iptables related document, e.g. for a local
LUG presentation, please send it to us, so we can discuss publication on our website.

Translating Documentation

If you are a native speaker of a foreign language (i.e. not english), you could
translate our HOWTO's or FAQ to your native language. This way you can help
users who have difficulties understanding english.

Please contact us in advance before you start your translation to
minimize the amount of duplicate work (somebody else could be working on the
same translation without you knowing it).